


The Hiding Place

by gilligankane



Category: Guiding Light
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-30
Updated: 2009-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olivia may think that she's got everything hidden away, but Natalia can see it - has been able to see it - and she's not going to let it slip away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hiding Place

_Where are you? You’ve seemed a little distant lately. Like you’ve got something to hide. You can tell me. I won’t be mad._

_\- pleasefindthis_

She sees Olivia, even if Olivia doesn’t want to be seen.

She sees the walls in her eyes – and the broken heart that’s there too, when the wall is gone.

She sees the hope and the pride and the confusion and the words that are hanging there between them, so fragile and so ridiculously potent.

So potent it could blow them both out of the water into the sky and burn them up like the sun burns Emma’s skin in the summer.

She  _sees_  Olivia and she wants to  _do something_.

“Want some help?” she asks softly, but Olivia doesn’t look up, just shakes her head  _no_.

She’s tired of  _no_.

“Olivia, can you just look at me?”

She thinks she hears Olivia say  _can’t_  under her breath and she feels her feet vault her forward so quickly, pushing her to Olivia’s side before she can protest.

“Look. At. Me,” she commands gently, hooking one finger under Olivia’s chin and lifting so that she can see into the sea of green she’ll never get tired of. “That’s better,” she smiles.

“What?” Olivia asks, trying for aggrieved and coming out as a mere whisper.

“I just wanted you to look at me.”

Olivia sighs. “Well, I looked at you. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get back to work.”

Natalia sighs this time and drops to the edge of the desk, perching right on the corner and waits; waits until Olivia finally looks up.

“ _What?_ ” Olivia asks again.

She swoops down –  _darts_  forward, really – and presses the palms of her hands against the soft leather of Olivia’s seat, being careful not to press to hard. She watches the line of Olivia’s throat move as the older woman swallows hard.

“Look at me,” she insists again. Olivia looks at her and Natalia can see it all in there: everything they’ve never said and everything they’ve never done. “Tell me you love me,” Natalia breathes out against Olivia’s face.

They’ve tried this before and then Frank proposed.

 “Stop.” Olivia pulls out of Natalia’s grasp and rolls the chair backward. But Natalia is quicker, surging forward again until Olivia has no choice to look at her; to stop this pulling away thing she’s doing and just  _look_  at her.

“Tell me you love me,” she commands gently.

She needs to hear it; needs Olivia to say it again because this time she’s ready to say it back.

No more of this “ _I’ll say it and you run away_ ” and “ _you say it and I’ll run away_.”

No more of this “ _let’s pretend like nothing happened.”_

No more, Natalia decides, because without Olivia, she has nothing else; nothing but an empty house and an empty heart and an empty life. And without Olivia, she suddenly finds she can’t breathe or think or sleep.

“I  _can’t_ ,” Olivia stresses, drawing a deep breath, getting ready for battle.

Natalia is quicker, again, cutting Olivia off smoothly. “You  _can_ , because I’m ready.”

Olivia should smile, but she frowns and Natalia sees something that looks like mild disgust. “You’re ready? You’re  _ready_?  _You’re_  ready? Well, great. That’s great, Natalia. I’m happy for you. Really, I am.”

“Olivia…”

Olivia lets out a short, harsh rasp of a laugh. “I was ready, before. I was ready but you put the brakes on. And now you’re ready. Well congratu- _freaking_ -lations. I’m  _not_.”

Natalia falters. She didn’t think of that. She didn’t think that Olivia would ever  _stop_  being ready.  _Loathe_  her? Yes. Want her? Hopefully. Resent her? Definitely. But Olivia to stop being ready to love her back? She never imagined it would happen.

Olivia had said:  _“I’ll wait for you_.”

Then again, Natalia had said:  _“No more waiting_.”

“Can you please leave, now? I have, I have work to do.”

Natalia falters.

A curled fist slams down on the desk between them. “God  _damn it_  Natalia, just go!”

“I love you,” Natalia breathes out. “Oh,  _God_ , I’m so sorry Olivia. I love you, so, so…”

“No.  _No_. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to come in here and say “ _tell me you love me_ ” like you  _deserve_  any love I have for you. It’s not your  _right_ and it’s not your  _privilege_  and if you think…” Olivia chokes on her words as they grow heavy and stick to the back of her throat. “You don’t get too…”

“Olivia.”

“You don’t…”

“Olivia.”

“You…”

“I love you,” Natalia says one more time. It’ll never be enough – three words will never be enough anymore, but it’s a jumping off place. Somewhere common they can start over from and rebuild from; somewhere they can break down and start again. “I love you.”

“You left.” It’s no longer an accusation; just a statement of truth.

“I’ll make it up to you.”

A shake of a head. “You won’t.”

“I can try.”

Olivia takes a shaky breath, then another solid, steady one and Natalia feels a rush through her body, igniting her blood in her veins, sending a tender, twirl of hope into her heart. “Tell me you love me.”

That’s what Olivia needs.

She needs  _“I love you”_  on command, day in and day out, for as long as it’ll take and as long as she lives.

“I love you.”

“This doesn’t…”

“I know.” Natalia  _does_  know. It doesn’t change anything, really. “But it’s a start, right?”

Olivia nods shakily; then nods again, solid and steady.

 She sees Olivia, even if Olivia doesn’t want to be seen.

She sees Olivia, and slowly and surely, she’ll break down the walls she can see, until she’s left with the heart of Olivia Spencer and nothing to stop her from keeping it for the rest of her life.


End file.
